Rafters Restaurant

Alistair Myers and Tom Lawson's Sheffield restaurant is now reaping the benefits of some constructive refurbing: an open kitchen adds to the visual allure, and the room has been fitted with new solid oak tables, made locally. The whole operation radiates enthusiasm: 'it is very rare to find this level of service, combined with personability, in a restaurant,' mused one diner, as the waiter wrote out the recipe for the miso Martini, before vacuum-packing some of the coffee beans. In between, the kitchen essays a fine-dining spin on classic home-style dishes, truffling up cauliflower cheese into something aromatically beguiling, transforming an Indian-spiced serving of Cornish cod with chip-shop scraps and caviar. Elsewhere, dishes are about the intelligent matching of core ingredients to their accompaniments: beetroot, blood orange and buttermilk with Loch Duart salmon; parsnip, blackcurrant and kale with Scottish venison. Indulgences of another era are evoked in the refined takes on rum-and-raisin ice cream, or Yorkshire rhubarb enriched with white chocolate, ginger and sorrel. A spectacular wine list is arranged by style, depending on whether you want some body but without mouth-drying tannins, or would actually quite like your socks knocking off. The small-glass options that accompany the tasting menu are well worth the extra investment for both gastronomic fit and imagination.

3 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence